Sumiarti is frantic as she runs towards the car. 'You must help my village, please,' the 36-year-old pleads. 'We have no water and food. One of my sons, he cannot move his leg, and other people have diarrhoea. We have nothing.'

In an ironic twist of fate, it seems one of the darker legacies of deposed Indonesian dictator Suharto may have saved many in the region's ethnic Chinese community from the worst of Saturday's earthquake destruction.

Suharto's policy of active discrimination meant that the town of Bantul, where the majority of the quake victims lived, was off limits to Chinese until recently.